Reddit - the Voice of the Internet

Reddit

Reddit is a great social media site for just about anything you want, and if you can't find what you are looking for, you can add it. Reddit is made up of many different unique Sub-Reddits. These sub-reddits, like discussion boards on a forum, are where people with common interests go to share links and discus different topics, for example on /r/food people share recipes or stories about different foods they have tried, and on /r/gaming many people share information about all things new on video games. with hundreds of different sub-reddits there is always something to look at.

Reddit is owned by Conde Nast Publications, and run by five programers in a small office out in California. most of the revenue is made through advertisements on the website. every page has only one advertisement, and they have no sound or pop up advertisements, so it is never annoying. there are also many advertising campaigns run through the site, right now the programers of the Opera web browser are advertising through the site.

Reddit is a great place to stay updated on everything that is going on in the world, a lot better than Digg, and for just about anyone who can use the internet!

Brooks and Shields Bless Springfield with Presence!

Springfield, MA - David Brooks and Mark Shields will be coming to the Springfield Public forum to debate and discuss local issues!!! on tuesday november 30th come to the springfield symphony hall to see this wonderful event!

The Wall Street Journal has called Mark Shields "the wittiest political analyst around" and "frequently the most trenchant, fair-minded, and thoughtful." The Washington Posthas called Shields "a walking almanac of American politics." His insights are first-hand and up-to-the minute, drawn from four decades of knowing, covering and savoring the country and its politics. A nationally known columnist and commentator, Shields has worked in Washington through the administrations of nine U.S. Presidents. He was an editorial writer for The Washington Post where he began writing his column in 1979. That column is now distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.

David Brooks became an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times in September 2003. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweekand the Atlantic Monthly, and he is currently a commentator on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." He is the author of Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense, both published by Simon & Schuster. Mr. Brooks joined The Weekly Standard at its inception in September 1995, having worked at The Wall Street Journal for the previous nine years. His last post at the Journal was as op-ed editor. Prior to that, he was posted in Brussels, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and European affairs. His first post at the Journal was as editor of the book review section, and he filled in for five months as the Journal's movie critic.

http://www.springfieldpublicforum.org/page1333.html

First Assignment Fall 10

Observations about the Article below.

1. David Meerman Scott does not like these stock photos of models in a workplace.

2. Apparently a lot of companies use these "B2B"(business to business) stock photos on their websites to appear attractive

3. David Meerman Scott uses the word "gobbledygook", I do not know what this word means...

4. Real People do not look like these happy people in the work place.

5. this article looked interesting, and the first two paragraphs were, but after that it was boring.

Who the hell ARE these people?

Maybe you can help me. I really want to know:
Who the hell are these people?

Who are these young, happy, pretty, multi-cultural people with great teeth and even better hair who hang out with notebook computers in sleek and modern conference rooms on B2B company Web sites all over the world?

Who are these international inhabitants of virtual corporate locales?

The reason I ask is because I've personally been inside hundreds and hundreds of B2B company offices in over 20 countries and have spent time in probably a thousand conference rooms over a 25-year career. Yet I have never seen these people who seem to inhabit a weird virtual world of corporate Web sites at organizations across the globe.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with stock images used in a clever way. In fact I use frequently use images from Shutterstock on this blog. I use stock images in presentations and I use stock images in my ebooks. It's not the photos. It’s the ways they are used.

Visual gobbledygook

The problem with the B2B happy multi-cultural conference room with computer shot is that it has become a cliché. It is world-class, cutting-edge, mission-critical visual gobbledygook. Just like written gobbledygook, this kind of image is so overused to have become meaningless.

These models don't look like you. They don't look like your employees. And they don't look like your customers (unless you run a modeling agency).

Because these models don’t look like you or your customers, it is insulting and demeaning to everyone (your employees and customers especially) to use these shots on your homepage and throughout your site.

Who is pimping your company?

Its sort of fun when I spot the same pretty model on two different sites. I've found one particular photo at use at multiple companies, including one of the biggest and most famous technology companies in the world. Is that really what you want? Some model representing your valuable brand? Really?

Use real people instead

Why not just use real people on your site? How innovative! Use real employees in a real conference room to represent your employees in a conference room! Damn. Why didn't we think of that? And use your real customers too.

Last week I presented at a meeting of executives atJackson Healthcare. I went into my rant of stock photography (in this case happy multi-cultural models posing as healthcare workers). I popped up a screenshot of the Jackson Healthcare homepage with a model pretending to be a doctor.

Then a remarkable thing happened. Just a few minutes later, the CEO of the company, Rick Jackson, raised his hand in the middle of my presentation to say they had swapped out the pretend doctor for a real one!

Wow. That was fast. And the actual doctor has a wonderful story too.

The baby being held in the picture is the child of a woman having surgery on the JH medical brigade in Honduras in 2008.

The story with Dr. Eustis was that he brought a teenager from Honduras to the US to take care of him and provide needed care for his leg in order for him to live. He did surgery on his leg in Honduras on the JH medical brigade, but wasn’t able to give him the proper care he needed there.

Now, isn’t that a heck of a lot better than a model dressing up like a doctor?

Just say NO to pretty models

Let me say again that stock images are great. I use them all the time. I'm not saying that you shouldn’t use stock images.

However, I am saying you must re-think using models to represent your employees and your customers. Lose the visual gobbledygook.

Link to Article: http://www.webinknow.com/2009/10/who-the-hell-are-these-people.html

New Class

Hi i am Spencer,

This blog was made originally for my Internet Communications class in the fall of 2009. It is now One year later and this Blog will now become my class blog for Professor Lowney's Public Relations Class. I am At this moment a college senior set to graduate this coming May. Most of the things i will post on this Blog will not be serious, so do not pay attention to it.

Have a nice Day